The Wrong Brother

I’d like to quote Jenna Hamilton when I say, “It was a misunderstanding of epic proportions.” Mom told me Mrs. Agrawal’s son finally asked me out, I was ecstatic. This news reached him very quickly, unfortunately the news of which son had asked me out, didn’t reach me until much later. Now Parth won’t talk to me and Harsh won’t stop talking to me. So how do I tell them? They have got the wrong brother.

Let me rewind.

My dad and Mr. Agrawal have been friends since their college days. So I have grown up with his kids.

‘I’ am Tanvi. For a long time, I though shorts and t-shirts along with a messy ponytail is the only way to dress up. So obviously, my role as the-best-friend-who-we-don’t-even-realize-is-a-girl was set. I’m a junior, so is Parth and his brother Harsh was a freshman in college. When we were kids we all hung out together, but then Harsh decided we were way too immature for him and left us to our own devices. We loved playing house all day, I was the man of the house going hunting and fishing and bringing back produce for my good little wife to cook with. When we grew up, we were still best friends but obviously didn’t play make believe games anymore, he became brilliant in a Michael Moscovitz way and was always busy with the school work so I came to treasure the few moments we spent together.

His most precious secrets lay with me, like his favorite movie which just happened to be, ‘Easy A.’ For the rest of the world the answer was ‘Up in the Air’ but I was the only one who was forced to sit through Emma Stone marathons every alternate month. My only condition was his famous cheese popcorn. I stuffed my face while he stared at the screen without blinking form behind his glasses, occasionally pushing back his too long hair. Needless to say, I had a problem with Emma Stone.

Now I had been waiting since a long time for us to move to the next stage of our relationship, I liked him and all he needed to do was find the courage to drag me to a corner and say it but he didn’t. I wasn’t stupid or a big fan of unrequited love, I know he liked me too. Once, we were all sitting and watching T.V. and I was smelling a banana, when my phone buzzed. I rolled my eyes when I saw Parth had texted me from the same room, asking what the hell was I doing? I stifled a laugh, and told him it helped a person to lose weight, then my mom came and took my banana and before I could protest my phone buzzed again. ‘You don’t need to do anything, you’re perfect’ he texted and gave me the most brilliant smile and I knew it was love. We had amazing conversations, about strange but true facts, the degradation of cartoon network, the lame ending of Hunger Games or the new Spiderman movie but he never said the one thing I wanted to hear.

Meanwhile, Harsh grew up nicely but he mostly ignored us when I came around and we didn’t mind, we ignored him right back. He was pretty fine, but I didn’t fall for him or anything. Parth was the peanut butter to my jelly.

Back to the present

I was living in the sweet sweet knowledge that Parth had finally asked me out until I received the following message, ‘YOU ARE GOING OUT WITH MY BROTHER?’ And after that, radio silence.

Boom! Boom! Boom! My perfect world came crashing down. And I was stuck in a very weird and awkward situation. Harsh could have asked me right? I would have found a creative way of saying no, but noooooo! He had to talk directly to my mother! Who does that?

So for the past two days I was constantly hearing, “Harsh is so handsome,” “You have been friends for life!” and the worst, “It's such a cute story!” It is, but the prince charming in this story is not Harsh, not if I have anything to do with it. And friends for life? Um, I thought I was friends with Parth, Harsh behaved like an asinine towards us. He mixed mud in milk and told us it was chocolate shake, I was scared of the basement for years because someone told me about the monster that lives there, and the time when, well you get the picture.

I decided to dress normally for the date but when I came out in jeans, a red t-shirt, a pony and minimal makeup (I know but I wanted to discourage him not repulse him) my mother marched me back inside stuffed me in a dress and wrenched the band out of my hair. We were supposed to go to ‘Little Italy’ and I felt a pang, Parth and I, we loved that place, it would be the perfect first date destination for us. Harsh didn’t even like pasta.

So when I entered the restaurant, the thing that I wanted the most but least expected was to find Parth sitting there smiling at me but that’s exactly what happened. I jumped when a voice spoke in my ear, “You kids were taking way too long, so we decided to do something about it already, as my brother clearly did not have the guts to do it, and the whole thing was hilarious, you trying to show enthusiasm for our date, but the best part was watching Parth mope all day and the smell, he stopped bathing, just cried all day, so I dragged his scrawny butt down here.” “I did take a bath and I didn’t mope all day, and now you should go,” said path as he squeezed between us and escorted me to our table. “So, now what?” I said to break the silence. “We order,” He said calling the waiter, “we’ll have the chef’s choice pasta and…” “A medium thin crust pizza with capsicum, tomato, onion and olives,” I completed by telling the waiter exactly what Parth wanted. He smiled that smile, the one I love, and said, “And now, we date.” And we did, on the best first date (of many) ever.

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